Rivets in Pool Wall

by William
(South Carolina)

Hello again. I finally have the pool up and liner in and its full of water!!!! My concern is this. It is a used Doughboy 16x32. One section of wall was buried in the ground in the original installation and rusted through. Not a large spot but it was down at the bottom where the wall fits into the bottom track.

I did not want a weak spot in the wall so I sandwiched the area with two pieces of flashing, with the edge of my flashing now being the edge of the wall to give it strength in that area. I siliconed it to the wall and the put a couple of rivets in it for good measure.

What I did not check was which side the rivet body came through and which side had the head. Ideally the head would have been on the inside to give a smooth transition. Not here, the head was on the outside but the wall was up and cove in place before I realized this.

So, I duct taped the entire area. I used about 18-20 layers of overlapping duct tape and layered them down and up to give a smooth transition so there was not a large bulge of duct tape sticking out of the wall. Well, this was at the bottom of the wall and the cove covers most of the rivets. Most, there are a couple of rivets about 6" above the cove that you can distinctly see now that the pool is full. They are covered with 18-20 layers of duct tape but they are noticeable.

My question is this, how well will the duct tape protect the liner in that area from tearing? IF I have to do something about it, does that mean draining back down and removing the top plates and liner to get to it? This is on my deep end so will the liner go back into place when the correction is made? If I remove the rivets from the outside will the duct tape be enough to keep the liner from pushing through the small holes left by the rivets?

Ideally the heads were on the inside and I would not be asking but like I said I didn't notice until all was assembled and in place. Thanks for your help.

Hi William. It's kind of funny William, as I was reading, about halfway through your post, I was thinking Duct Tape. That's what I would have done.

They will still show but that many layers of tape should prevent any damage.

Draining the pool to fix this would have risks, especially being that close to the deep end. As long as the water level were kept at the top of the cove, or thereabouts, you might be allright. If done all in one day, the draining, fixing and repairing. Hopefully on a sunny day, that always helps.

The tape should hold the repair just fine without the rivets if that helps any. But still, I would only do this if you felt you really needed to.

You will see as time goes on if they look like they will pose a problem. A smooth transition over a bump in the wall should leave the liner without any color variation. If the liner turns white at the end of the rivets this is a sign of stress and you might consider the repair.